Area disease estimation based on sentinel hospital records.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Population health attributes (such as disease incidence and prevalence) are often estimated using sentinel hospital records, which are subject to multiple sources of uncertainty. When applied to these health attributes, commonly used biased estimation techniques can lead to false conclusions and ineffective disease intervention and control. Although some estimators can account for measurement error (in the form of white noise, usually after de-trending), most mainstream health statistics techniques cannot generate unbiased and minimum error variance estimates when the available data are biased.

Methods and findings

A new technique, called the Biased Sample Hospital-based Area Disease Estimation (B-SHADE), is introduced that generates space-time population disease

SUBMITTER: Wang JF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3160318 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature